The Red Baron vs the Sons of Anarchy

[Stigma Rex]

Now for my Random fight of the Week!



VS



Can the Sons of Anarchy shoot down the Red Baron, or does he kill them in a strafing run?

For this fight there are 12 members of the Sons, all armed with AK-47s, and pistols, as well as their bikes. The Red Baron starts 100 feet off the ground flying towards the Sons in his plane.

[Cthulhu_of_R'yleh]

Well, either way this ends in Pizza.

[king arthas]

Ummm the Red Barron is in a plane up in the air thousands of feet above, I don't think they will be able to hit him. Even though world war 1 planes were made of wood they would still be hard to hit from the ground unless you have Flak guns. Of course it also isn't easy to hit small ant sized targets from up in the air, but then again the Red Barron was the best ace in the first world war.

[Stigma Rex]

Well, either way this ends in Pizza.

What???

Ummm the Red Barron is in a plane up in the air thousands of feet above, I don't think they will be able to hit him. Even though world war 1 planes were made of wood they would still be hard to hit from the ground unless you have Flak guns. Of course it also isn't easy to hit small ant sized targets from up in the air, but then again the Red Barron was the best ace in the first world war.

But wouldn't he have to fly down rather low to make a strafing run?

[Cthulhu_of_R'yleh]

What???

[Chou Blaster]

It's the damn truth too.

[king arthas]

But wouldn't he have to fly down rather low to make a strafing run?

Not that low, I mean if he can see them he could just shoot down at them and let gravity do the rest.

[Totoro Man]

are the Sons of Anarchy experienced with these weapons? have they had experience and training in shooting down moving targets?

I can't really call this fight for certain without knowing a bit more about them. if they've got 6 AK47s between the lot of them it's hard to imagine them losing if they have any sort of competency with the weapon... although deflection gunnery on a moving motorcyle would be fiendishly difficult... unless they dismounted they might not hit anything!

but from a mechanical stand-point the Red Baron starts off with a big disadvantage. he's at extremely low altitude (100 ft) in a wood and fabric airplane. if the fight starts with 1000 feet between the opponents Richthofen's best move is to fly away and hope he doesn't get hit too badly.

(standard distance of 100 ft is so close the Red Baron couldn't realisitically hit any of his adversaries-- forcing him to fly through their formation and opening himself up to lots of gun fire. the Triplane can only go about 108 mph at ground level so he's not fast enough to safely extend away from the bikers going full speed in level flight.)

it helps to know that the most probable cause of death for Richthofen (aka the Red Baron) was through a high concentration of small arms fire at low altitude. so he starts off in a bad way.

if Richthofen survives long enough, uninjured, to get up to 2000 ft then he can make diving attacks on the bikers-- the aircraft's rotary engine is a bit of a problem-- it protects him from getting killed personally, but it becomes more vulnerable when he makes a head-on attack.

if the Sons of Anarchy are not particularly good with weapons-- Richthofen will take this fight after dying from injuries.

he's got a plane, goes 105 mph or so (depending on the engine), two 7.92 mm machine gun swith 500 round belts of continuous feed ammunition. he doesn't have to worry about changing clips, aiming and steering as seperate tasks-- all he has to do is fly straight at his target and open fire.

there are some serious problems for both sides-- but simple attrition and some historical knowledge have me favoring the Sons of Anarchy. if all but one of them dies-- they still win. Richthofen's odds are not too good here. if you gave him a Halberstadt CL.II with Gottfried Ehmann in the back seat-- well, that would improve things quite a bit... assuming they could survive the first 90 seconds of the battle they'd clean house. (1 fixed machine gun firing forward with 500 rounds, 1 flexibly mounted machine gun with about 400 rounds, a couple of 25 pound bombs, and about 8 heavy-duty hand grenades.

LOL, I'm totally over-thinking this... but then I've done years worth of research on the Red Baron so... yeah. conditioned reflex!

[Stigma Rex]

are the Sons of Anarchy experienced with these weapons? have they had experience and training in shooting down moving targets?

I can't really call this fight for certain without knowing a bit more about them. if they've got 6 AK47s between the lot of them it's hard to imagine them losing if they have any sort of competency with the weapon... although deflection gunnery on a moving motorcyle would be fiendishly difficult... unless they dismounted they might not hit anything!

but from a mechanical stand-point the Red Baron starts off with a big disadvantage. he's at extremely low altitude (100 ft) in a wood and fabric airplane. if the fight starts with 1000 feet between the opponents Richthofen's best move is to fly away and hope he doesn't get hit too badly.

(standard distance of 100 ft is so close the Red Baron couldn't realisitically hit any of his adversaries-- forcing him to fly through their formation and opening himself up to lots of gun fire. the Triplane can only go about 108 mph at ground level so he's not fast enough to safely extend away from the bikers going full speed in level flight.)

it helps to know that the most probable cause of death for Richthofen (aka the Red Baron) was through a high concentration of small arms fire at low altitude. so he starts off in a bad way.

if Richthofen survives long enough, uninjured, to get up to 2000 ft then he can make diving attacks on the bikers-- the aircraft's rotary engine is a bit of a problem-- it protects him from getting killed personally, but it becomes more vulnerable when he makes a head-on attack.

if the Sons of Anarchy are not particularly good with weapons-- Richthofen will take this fight after dying from injuries.

he's got a plane, goes 105 mph or so (depending on the engine), two 7.92 mm machine gun swith 500 round belts of continuous feed ammunition. he doesn't have to worry about changing clips, aiming and steering as seperate tasks-- all he has to do is fly straight at his target and open fire.

there are some serious problems for both sides-- but simple attrition and some historical knowledge have me favoring the Sons of Anarchy. if all but one of them dies-- they still win. Richthofen's odds are not too good here. if you gave him a Halberstadt CL.II with Gottfried Ehmann in the back seat-- well, that would improve things quite a bit... assuming they could survive the first 90 seconds of the battle they'd clean house. (1 fixed machine gun firing forward with 500 rounds, 1 flexibly mounted machine gun with about 400 rounds, a couple of 25 pound bombs, and about 8 heavy-duty hand grenades.

LOL, I'm totally over-thinking this... but then I've done years worth of research on the Red Baron so... yeah. conditioned reflex!

Cool to see we have someone here with this degree of knowledge on the Baron. I am very impressed at your level of detail.

As for the Sons of Anarchy, they have some experience with their weapons, and several of them have military training, though they aren't the Spetsnaz by any means. They have been in several fire fights, and spend time on the range as well. As for moving targets the best feats I can think of include shooting people from the back of their bikes, and shooting people off the back of pickup trucks. So with Gottfried and the Halberstadt CL.II, do you think that they could win?

[Totoro Man]

well... if assuming they still start at 100 ft-- if they live past the first head-on pass I think they'll eventually win via better firepower-- since their one plane would have firepower on par with the 12 guys they're up against. the Parabellum machine gun in the backseat could probably cut down a bunch of the bikers and set team WWI up for an eventual win. the CL.II was employed late in the war with the idea of shattering infantry attacks, halting lightly armored vehicles, and providing close escort for recon planes and bombers. it's a much better choice for taking out a dozen armed bikers. there's still the chance they could get killed in the first minute or so-- but once they get aloft we're talking about a pilot with 80 confirmed victories and an observer with 12 confirmed victories (all against fast moving targets).

the biggest advantage is that the Halberstadt has an in-line engine. the Fokker Triplane had a rotary engine where the cylinders spun around the crank-shaft. this means that if the Sons concentrated their fire on the engine it could shed a cylinder. once the Baron loses one of his engine cylinderes he's got less than a minute to live before the engine disintegrates from excessive vibration and he crashes to his death. (so the Halberstadt could give him a couple more minutes to do something even if his engine takes damage)

7/10 in favor of the plane
those 3 victories factor in that there's a really good chance the plane's crew gets mortally wounded in the first head-on pass.

[Hiromi]

typically if you can't hit something with a thrown object, you can't hit it reliably with an AK, they are not reliable long range rifles. Given the Red Baron's service record, we can safely assume he can compensate for the limitations of his aircraft to the point they're non factors, since he did it remarkably well during the war.

Edit: Honestly the Sons are horrifically prepared for strafing runs, they're on street bikes, and being limited to a fairly narrow corridor is basically fish in a barrel for a strafing run, the planes will be able to make their runs from altitudes beyond the range an AK has a prayer of hitting something, 120+ feet.

edit2: Typically standard rules are adjusted as necessary depending on the opponents, a 100 feet starting distance is relatively unrealistic when one opponent is in a plane, especially since the plane has to be in motion already when the starting bell rings.

[Stigma Rex]

typically if you can't hit something with a thrown object, you can't hit it reliably with an AK, they are not reliable long range rifles. Given the Red Baron's service record, we can safely assume he can compensate for the limitations of his aircraft to the point they're non factors, since he did it remarkably well during the war.

Edit: Honestly the Sons are horrifically prepared for strafing runs, they're on street bikes, and being limited to a fairly narrow corridor is basically fish in a barrel for a strafing run, the planes will be able to make their runs from altitudes beyond the range an AK has a prayer of hitting something, 120+ feet.

edit2: Typically standard rules are adjusted as necessary depending on the opponents, a 100 feet starting distance is relatively unrealistic when one opponent is in a plane, especially since the plane has to be in motion already when the starting bell rings.

Though I have heard similar things, I have never seen accurate information to prove that the AK-47 is inaccurate. Infact I have seen many tests where it was able to go head to head with rifles like the M-16, and get similar results. Though assault rifles in general are not designed for overly long ranges.


EDIT: It doesn't have quite the range that the M-16 does, but they are still far from inaccurate.

[Hiromi]

It can be overcome to some extent with training at relatively short ranges, however the AK47 being fundamentally inaccurate by design is a well documented fact, everything from the recoil, to the flawed iron sights.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6BpI3xD6h0